Mark Kritz' First 'First'

From left, the 'Group of the Week' - Linda,
Bill, Beth
and Will, lacking one wristwatch.

''Why Would I have Half a Clue?''

Paris:- Thursday, 17. April 2003:- This week's
bad news about the good weather is that it isn't going to
last forever. This afternoon Monsieur Ferrat complained to
me that it is too hot. I can remember folks in southern
Spain complaining about the same thing at the same time of
year - but they were anticipating it getting steadily
hotter.

We, here, in Paris, can expect no such future. Our
faux-summer, which got into high gear yesterday, continues
today and will probably carry on tomorrow, and then - and
then it'll dump like a stone to a level quite 'acceptable'
for spring in Scotland.

After three whole days of stunning sunshine and really
respectable temperatures, we have an Easter weekend to look
forward to. All right! It isn't going to snow, there isn't
going to be any sleeting rain. But it is going to try very
hard.

Since I have one more day ahead of me to go around
wearing my calypso summer shirts and taking photos of
residents wiggling their toes in every available fountain and
lying around hardly clothed on all the grass that the city
has said we can lie around on, on account of it being 'open
grass' season, I fully intend to do it.

You are warned. The colorful photos in next Monday's
edition will be true photos of Paris' faux-summer that was.
But come to think of it, it might not be the only
faux-summer this spring. The weather seems to be acting
like a yoyo - up, down, up, down.

Mark survived Navy
coffee, settles for 'soup of the day.'

This means, that if you intended to bring your raincoat
and galoshes and you do, and it turns out this is just
useless baggage - no complaining! Nobody here cares about
the raincoat you don't have to wear.

With these thoughts drifting hazily in my mind I go down
the stairs and out the door and down the street as far as
the 'Chez Papa' sign and turn left and walk down Paris'
only street without house numbers to the métro at
Raspail, where a number four train arrives a minute after
and whisks me through underground tunnels to the
Odéon station, where I bail out to walk the rest of
the way to Pont-Neuf.

On the bridge, I immediately notice that a formerly
deserted city - on account of Easter holidays for school
kids - seems full of sun lovers strolling all over
everywhere. Looking over the sides of the bridge I see them
lolling on the quays on the left bank, on the Ile de la
Cité and over on the right bank, and crawling past
all the bouquinistes lining the sidewalks.

At the news kiosk in front of Samaritaine I buy today's
Le Parisien. Its big front-page headline says, "C'est
l'été!" After its blah-blah about how
even working people are benefitting and the kids are going
crazy in the water jets at the André-Citroën
park, its reminds us of a risk of drought in 'certain'
departments.

Yes, we need to worry about this. I am already worried.
While the trees are very proud of their new light green -
almost transparent - leaves, in many places the grass looks
fried. How has this happened? When did it happen?

Just as I approach the terrace of the club's café
La Corona, member Mark Kritz steps outside to see if the
club's secretary is on the horizon. Since it is 15:00, he
is closer than the horizon, a fact that Mark quickly
notices.

Inside the café's grande salle it is not cooler
but it is a lot shadier. All the café's windows are
open, so the traffic noise is about as loud as it is
outside, but it is a bit calmer because there are no
scooters in the café.

Mark orders a grande crême. This is the
café that comes in a soup bowl with two handles. "I
don't think Monsieur Ferrat is putting much café in
my soup," Mark says.

I am still interested in what sailors get to eat in the
Navy and Mark knows a bit about this. He says the food he
had on a destroyer wasn't special, except for the time he
bought a huge red snapper for two
dollars and the cook did a special job on it, for the
officers who weren't ashore. "We nearly ate the whole
thing."

Today's café-flavored 'Soup of the
Week.'

Then he shakes his head and says, "The coffee was
ghastly - everywhere in the Navy. It would turn gray when
you put milk in it."

Suddenly we are surrounded by Colshers. They, Beth
Colsher, Bill Colsher and Will Colsher, have been out
walking. They sit down at opposite ends of the club's
tables, as if they've been too close to everybody for too
long.

This isn't the case. They have merely been walking for
too long. Bill is the club 'report' reader and Beth and
Will - all they know is they get to sit down in a shady
café.

On Tuesday, the hottest day of the year, they walked up
the stairs to the Tour Eiffel's second level. There they
found they could not buy a ticket to the third level, and
it was far too high to climb. Earlier today they tackled
the 242 steps up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.

The Colshers arrived on Monday with all their rainy
weather gear, on a huge jet plane with only about 80
passengers. Everyone got a whole row of seats. There was
legroom galore and lots of inflight movies to spare.

The Colshers also come from a 'City of the Week.' This
is Winnewood, Pennsylvania. This is good because they used
to live in Chicago. There's nothing wrong with Chicago, but
it has already been a 'City of the Week.'

They have come to the club straight from the Louvre.
They say there were only about 80 people inside the museum,
so they got a good look at the Mona Lisa. This shatters my
theory that the best time to go see it is on a damp and
rainy Sunday morning in November of 1978.

Will Colsher, unlike his parents, is on his first visit
to Paris. He has three problems here. Every time he buys a
ticket to something he has to prove he is only 17 years
old. He isn't sure he likes 'frisée' lettuce. And he
hasn't found the best place to watch Paris girls yet.

Mark Kritz isn't about to divulge his secrets and takes
his leave. He is replaced by the server-lady,
Linda Thalman, who has just been savagely attacked by a
RER exit gate slamming shut on her nose. She shows us her
wound. "Bloody hell" she says. "Mugged by a closing
door!"

Photos of the Cadillac Ranch cats. The one on
the right likes to bite the feet of friends that feed
it.

There is no defense against this type of rare
occurrence. Every once in a while an entry or exit gate
will decide to be bolshy and slam shut for no apparent
reason - sometimes separating travellers from their
luggage.

Pushing luggage through first is a good idea. This
leaves the traveller unencumbered in case of an unprovoked
attack by dumb machinery on a rampage.

But not to worry. It is less common than dodging madmen
scooter drivers racing down the sidewalks. While I am
engaged with thinking I will write this to be reassuring, I
am brought back to the meeting when the server-lady says,
"Why would I have half a clue?"

This is, without doubt, the 'Quote of the Week.'

Ah. We are back wondering where the girls are. Linda
decides to teach Will some popular song lyrics. "Haven't
you heard this? 'Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?'"
In a former life, Linda was a language teacher.

Both Bill and Will's foreign language is Latin. Bill
tries a Latin verb that works pretty well in French. I
think a good métro exit to watch may be
Odéon, but tend to think there may be better ones -
like out in front of the Café Le Bouquet on
Daguerre.

Next thing, Linda is rooting around in her purse,
looking for photos of her cats. The Colshers say they
didn't bring their photos. Will says their cat likes
sleeping behind their warm iMac, but the TV set is too
hot.

Linda asks about the métro to take to get to
Galeries Lafayette. Everybody brings out a map. "We live
here and use maps too," Linda says.

I wonder if she isn't supposed to be going to dance
class tonight. "What day is it?" she asks, doubtfully.

This is not exactly out of left field. My notes do not
say so, but we were talking about all the flag stories that
are going around these days.

For example, in this issue's crime story, there is a quote from a
historical proclamation about exactly how the French flag
is supposed to look. It might have been correct then, but
isn't now. And I'm still waiting for eagle-eyed readers to
point out the mistake.

Before the meeting winds up, I ask the Colshers if they
can give me advice about how to keep Metropole
running, by using second-hand Macintosh- based equipment. I
can only afford to do it 'Good, Bad and Ugly' style, and
they seem kind of enthusiastic about this puzzle. Like true
Mac folks.

A café terrace today which happens
to be the terrace of the club's café.

Afterwards, I guide Linda two blocks to the métro
entry in front of Samaritaine, so she can take the line
seven to Galeries Lafayette. This is not a real good
métro exit for watching young ladies wearing their
summertime duds, so I head for Le Bouquet.

What Used
to Be Here

The 'Call for Your Favorite Restaurants' used to be
here, but I'm going to let it go to sleep without totally
giving up on the idea.

About the 'Café
Metropole Club About' Page

Becoming a member of this club is really easy if you
read the 'About the Café
Metropole Club' page. The page says a bit about the
club, like about it being free and other stuff. If you
require any other information, send me 25 cents or a
lottery ticket

Don't bother looking at this 'About' page if lack of
details disturbs you - they are not contained in the weekly
'reports' either. You don't really need to know more than
the simple fact that you can become a member of this online
magazine's live, free and real club by being at any of its
meetings in Paris, in person and awake if
possible.

Why, Not, When, Where, How, Who, What?

The club's meetings begin - contrary to Paris
'exceptions' - about 15:00 on Thursdays and continue until
17:00, in Europe's ex-summer-like Zone of Mythical Time -
which is really 'CET' for short and not 'YAWN' - and known
elsewhere as 3 pm to 5 pm in rare Anglo areas of the globe,
even though club meetings are usually only held in Paris
part of it.

Bringing your own 'Quote of the Week' or concocting any
other 'Things of the Week' are not 'rules.' True 'firsts'
are always welcome too, with 'first' having preference over
'true.' The club secretary's own 'firsts' are disqualified
even if 'true,' unless a member will accept credit.

'No-names' is an option you can also opt-in, or out of.
If you prefer to be 'not found' on the Internet, or
'in-out-opted.' 'No rules' have ceased being an 'exception'
or a 'rule' anymore. There are some other
'exceptions,' but really, not many of them are rules.

Whatever you say will be honestly appreciated by the
other members present if they are listening, which they
really do sometimes - and by all readers of this online
magazine - if it should happen to be written here, as some
of it is, sometimes.*

*The above paragraph changed since last week
on account of the secretary getting bored with it
unchanging.